Listen sport, I've been here a while, so I've seen it all. They've cheered on Islamofascists in Libya, Nazis in Ukraine, Al Qaeda in Syria and regime change in Venezuela. So join the party Canucklhead, there's always room for one more...

"...People on board were tasered and hit by masked IOF soldiers. We did not get our passports or belongings before we got off the boat. Do not believe reports of peaceful interception.' We urgently need to know the details of who was injured and how seriously, and what treatment they are receiving, if any. A military attack on a civilian vessel is a violent act and a violation of international law. Taking 22 people from international waters to a country which is not their destination constitutes an act of kidnapping which is also unlawful under the International Law of the Sea..."

Listen sport, I've been here a while, so I've seen it all. They've cheered on Islamofascists in Libya, Nazis in Ukraine, Al Qaeda in Syria and regime change in Venezuela. So join the party Canucklhead, there's always room for one more...

What if I don't want to join the party but just want to smuggle weapons inside medical supplies so I can act outraged when the ships carrying weapons are boarded?

FFS, the Freedom Flotilla is NOT carrying weapons to Gaza. I know this because I know some of the participants - both on the boats and providing support behind the scenes. My activist colleague and friend, Prof. David Heap (University of Western Ontario) speaking to Al Jazeera in London, UK, about what actually happened.

FFS, the Freedom Flotilla is NOT carrying weapons to Gaza. I know this because I know some of the participants - both on the boats and providing support behind the scenes. My activist colleague and friend, Prof. David Heap (University of Western Ontario) speaking to Al Jazeera in London, UK, about what actually happened.

FFS, the Freedom Flotilla is NOT carrying weapons to Gaza. I know this because I know some of the participants - both on the boats and providing support behind the scenes. My activist colleague and friend, Prof. David Heap (University of Western Ontario) speaking to Al Jazeera in London, UK, about what actually happened.

"Why has Justin Trudeau's government not yet secured the release of FN elder Larry Commodore who was kidnapped by Israel's military on the high seas in yet another act of IDF piracy? He is reported to have been injured. His incarceration is an outrage." (see vid)

FFS, the Freedom Flotilla is NOT carrying weapons to Gaza. I know this because I know some of the participants -

Sorry Meg lots of crimes have been carried out under the noses of people who think they know better. Suggesting weapons aren't being carried because you "know people" isn't solid evidence. The same holds true for suggestions that weapons ARE being transported. Ultimately there's no way to know unless the shipments are being searched.

There are weapons being smuggled in. On this specific flotilla? Perhaps not, but weapons have even been discovered being smuggled in, including by the UN, or rather inside UN aid shipments.

I'll conceded that faking weapons being smuggled in would be great propaganda and I'm certain there ARE fake stories and fake weapons caches "being found", but there's also legitimate ones getting discovered too.

Off the top of my head I don't know what Apartheid means, normally I'd just google it but I'm not too inclined to do so because I think both sides of that fight are assholes who are murdering each other. I have no love for Israel considering it very much appears they murdered unarmed Canadian soldiers on UN observer duty.

The Conservatives under harper did everything they could to cover it up.

You confess you know next to nothing about a topic yet you are perfectly ready to believe and defend corporate media stories which are obviously unsupported or false. You will continue to be gullible to such propaganda until you actually do use that google and educate yourself. You are however half right about the 'assholes' in the Israel Palestine struggle.

You confess you know next to nothing about a topic yet you are perfectly ready to believe and defend corporate media stories which are obviously unsupported or false. You will continue to be gullible to such propaganda until you actually do use that google and educate yourself. You are however half right about the 'assholes' in the Israel Palestine struggle.

Know little about the motivation and politics of the struggle. I do make a study of conflicts, tactics, stragtity and the like (maybe not grammar though eh?) . Quick searches on google easily show cases where weapons were found during searches, from reputable sources (I can forward a spreadsheet that helps you calculate the authencity of a website).

There's clear propaganda on both sides of this conflict. Where there's smoke there's also fire, money to be made smuggling weapons in. Unless of course you think people are saying no to making money on the backs of others? I don't think so.

If I was Israel I'd even pay gun runners to smuggle weapons to Gaza through medial relief flotilla in order to make a public scene of capturing them to make palistine look bad. If I was palistine I'd make it look like Israel was framing palistine with the same tactic.

I've found contraband stuff in all kinds of relief aid, from inside computers to kids backpacks. NGOs are as corruptable as anyone.

Its not black and white in a conflicts like these. But go on thinking one side are saints and the other devils.

I can also add I helped organized some companies to donate expired but still very much usable medical equipment to people fighting ISIS a couple years ago. By and large the supplies arrived and apparently most didn't even appear opened or inspected.

Maybe not such a good idea to use a Trumpian "It's not a crime" defense to sell into what is propaganda, and for which there is no evidence. It just legitimizes the Israeli position.

Aside from there being no evidence, why would they jeopardize a protest after going through the trouble of having the boat searched on their departure? It makes no sense. They must have expected they would be boarded, and thoroughly searched, and that they would likely not reach land.

It makes no sense. They must have expected they would be boarded, and thoroughly searched, and that they would likely not reach land.

That would be assuming they were even aware. Smugglers will often hide their stuff among legitimate cargo/travellers.

I don't understand why the US funnels so much money into Israel. Hundreds of millions, billions? It's a lot. And Israel has incredibly advanced weapons and technology and they're fighting with people who literally use sticks and stones and slingshots. They're hardly at risk of bringing invaded from Palistine. The fact that medical supplies need to be brought in in such a manner should tell the world how fucked up things are for Palistine and the UN should sort it out.

Has rabble.ca did any kind of fund raiser or anything for Palistine? I bet we could get a few boxes of medical supplies together. Any takers?

Just because the boat will be boredef doesn't mean the searches will automatically find contraband items. Lots of hiding places. Maybe whom ever is footing the bill is willing to take the risks, especially if they aren't the ones on the boat. Likewise for smugglers getting paid to try and get stuff smuggled in. If they're paid to get the items and sneak it on a boat they may get paid beforehand, whether the boat is searched or not. If it's discovered there's always another boat. There's a lot of variables.

Do you think it's being the realm of possibility that Israel is smuggling in weapons in order to discredit the aid flotilla? Maybe they're pulling a Tolkien gulf play.

Look at the people forming the 'action committee', the knowledged that every other shipment travelling this route has been harrassed and searched - often with high levels of prejudice, the media goals of the group (Palestine suffering, Israel heartless). Weapons just run counter to what this trip is about. If I wanted weapons, I would find a weak link in the Israeli security team, figure out something on the Egyptian border, or find a creative smuggling group, not try and get some amateurs to handle my cargo (knowingly or not).

It's not as simple as "if they use the word 'found weapons', that justifies everything". And I don't particularly like Hamas, but Hamas wouldn't be a thing if the Israeli government hadn't A)spent years working for the pointless objective of discrediting the PLO; and B)Humiliated both the PLO and all other Palestinians who did all they could to cooperate with Israel and the "peace process" in the Nineties by continuing to build settlements and by having a security policy in which physical beatings were an officially encouraged tactic.

It's not about Hamas or "terrorism". It's about the fact that the people of Palestine have been persecuted for decades. When you're persecuted, resistance is justified-and ANY of us would resist, in some way, if placed in that situation. And if(as has been the case here) non-violent resistance, such as that Mubarak Awad was organizing in the Eighties, and which is still the approach used by the majority of rank-and-file Palestinian civilians and their international accomplices, was violently crushed by the authorities being resisted, it would be inevitable that any of us would at least strongly consider moving towards other means.

This situation was not invented by Hamas, or by the PLO. It was invented by Israeli regime arrogance and intransigence. And the racist citizenship law Netanyahu's government just pushed through the Knesset destroys any remaining non-reactionary case for taking the Israeli "side" against the Palestinians, as well as severing any remaining connection between the reason for Israel's existence and the past oppression experienced by the peoples in whose name Israel purports to exist.

It's now nothing more than just another 19th-century nationalist movement. And as all other forms of nationalism have edged closer and closer to fascism and ethnic/religious supremacism, so has this one.

(on edit) also, you're assuming we should just take the word of the IDF that they "found weapons".

Weapons get smuggled to every conflict zone on the planet. Conflict zones created and encouraged by imperialist, neo-liberal backed forces filling the vacuum created by the ousting of colonials. In this particular instance we have an Isreali force, illegally (not just by international law, but mariner law as well), halting and boarding a ship (piracy) and abusing its passengers and crew and taking them from the boat (kidnapping) to be imprisoned, released and deported.

This is not ideology. This is fact. Israel continually violates international law without reprecussion from other signatories to that law. Like Canada, who played a key role in the creation of Israel. Paladin, if you're not interested in understanding or learning about these things (you can Google a list of erroneous articles but can't be bothered to look up Apartheid? What the fucking fuck?), you should look at contributing to a forum that better meets your particular celebration of ignorance and stupidity.

Indigenous leader Larry Commodore returns to Canada after being released from an Israeli prison, after being brutally assaulted by Israeli military. Then further abused by Canadian consular officials who accused them of violating Israeli law, acted as 'aggressive tools of the Israeli state and occupation'. No protest, complaint or questions yet forthcoming from Trudeau, Freeland or Canadian officials. Yet another demonstration of the serious and alarming degree of Israeli power over Canadian politicians.

For a global boycott of the Apartheid State of Israel! Free Palestine!

"Devina Levrini said that the activists' message to the world is that their message was never about us or the treatment received by the Israeli government; 'what the Palestinians go through is much worse.' 'There is a genocide going on by an apartheid regime and the world must act. The ships will continue to sail until Gaza is free."

It is no surprise to find some so-called progressives on this board taking the side of the oppressor. It has been that way here for as long as I can remember. In Canada the liberal left has always been a welcoming home for the right in such matters.

"When the pro-apartheid factions of CIJA lavish praise on a politician, you can be sure that politician has betrayed human rights. Good riddance Thomas Mulcair. You will live in infamy for your slavish devotion to a murderous apartheid regime."

Thanks for highlighting the horrific plight of the Indigenous people’s quizzical! As well I’m sure there are many others in Canada that suffer from the lack of access to basic necessities whom do not identify themselves as Indigenous.

Edited to add that I was not taking into account that the Idiginous peoples of the Americas suffered a similar if not worse fate than the Palestinians peoples when I made that comment in the phrase "we in Canada"

"Sweden's Foreign Minister condemns Israel's seizure of Freedom Flotilla boats in international waters as a breach of international law. Meanwhile, as predicted, Justin Trudeau's government says nothing."